She’d learnt, since they married, a special way of talking to her husband that was at once perfectly well-mannered and acceptable but not submissive. She rarely looked him in the eye. Instead she gazed at a vase of flowers and passed comment about that, or fixed her eyes on a particularly appetising plate of food and chatted about the ingredients. If she had to meet his gaze she had a way of making her face blank. It wasn’t that he was despotic, or vile. He was simply a disappointment. The trick was never ever to convey impatience or to acknowledge dismay.

She fruitlessly tried to engage him. She asked him about the war. ‘Not talk for women. Not for women at all.’ She suggested they have a night out in Stafford or Derby.

‘Shall we go and see a film?’

‘Is there one you’d particularly like to see?’

‘There’s always something. The Americans seem to make a new one every day. They are usually snappy enough. It’s not a bad way to spend an evening.’

‘You go if you want.’

‘I wish you’d come too.’ Did she? Probably not really. Waves of guilt washed over her. She must be a very bad person not to want to see a film with a soldier. Then again, the soldier didn’t want to see a film with his wife. She enquired after his parents. ‘They are well, thank you.’

‘I invited them here for your leave.’

‘Yes, they wrote to tell me.’

They had not replied to her. They’d long since stopped writing directly to her; their only correspondence was an exchange of Aubrey’s letters, which arrived grubby, the cream-coloured paper marked with handling. We’re not quite in the trenches yet. But very close. Not long now. Which is exciting. What we’re here for after all . . . Soon we’ll be moved up the reserve ready for another push. We need to take some pressure off the French boys . . . In the thick of it now! Sometimes – not always – she found a brief postscript asking after Mabel’s health, written in a meticulous hand. However, they had sent two letters here in the last week, both addressed to Aubrey in anticipation of his leave. He hadn’t read them to Vivian. She pressed for news but it was delivered in a way that did not court comment or further enquiry. ‘Are they coming?’

‘Of course. They’ll be here tomorrow night.’

‘Oh, I wish I’d known.’ Vivian frantically started to plan menus. She’d need to air both spare rooms and check the sheets were clean, in good repair. Flustered, she dared to comment, ‘I think it’s a bit rude that they didn’t reply to me directly. After all, I invited them.’

‘They naturally assumed you’d realise they’d accept.’ He was obviously, inevitably, loyal to his family. Why wouldn’t he be? But she felt locked out.

The baby helped. It was hardly possible to believe that darling, darling Mabel came from him. She did, of course; she even looked like her father. They had the same-shaped nose and chin. It had made Vivian love him a small amount, the fact that he’d given her this treasure, at least until he’d arrived home and seemed indifferent towards his daughter. Then Vivian rather thought she liked him less.